Sharp Edges

Good sense goes to the leeward. Should be slashing brush but work 11 of the next 12 days so I couch-out and read, new travel book by a dear friend in the mail "Twenty West" Mac Nelson, and it's a fine trip. Another in my personal pantheon of very bright friends, WELL read, Shakespeare scholar, wilderness junkie, he uses the forum to talk about everything, especially getting to, and camping in Yellowstone. A lovely book, from SUNY Press. All of the books I've seen from SUNY are handsome, well designed, well crafted. Having designed and printed some 60 or 70 books myself I don't take this lightly. The new print shop here is done, but B is off, adding rooms for his daughter's forthcoming twins and a master bedroom in the new bride's off-ridge house, so no printing until the fall. I thinking about doing a book with thin copper covers, embossed, allow it to oxidize then cover with acetate. Pretty easy, really, meaning nothing I don't know how to do as long as I'm careful. I'm familiar with those parameters. Have to deal with the sharp edges issue but I thought about that and think I can make the books safe, imagine a symbol/sign that could be put on the cover, to indicate the problem, a warning: two color, black outline of a finger with a cut and drops of blood, inside a black circle, with a heavy red X over the top. Just something to slow the reader down. Actually I can just wrap the acetate down around the edges and everything is copacetic, still, I like the image that symbol forms and may have some rubber stamps made. I could become a graffiti artist, defacing other people's work. A kind of criticism. Need to keep options open. Fucking whippoorwill sets up right outside my window, not 15 feet away, actually louder than the cicadas, and I can't stand it, intrusive sound. I'd brought home some firecrackers D had bought to scare away the shitting birds at the museum, doves and pigeons, befouling the various architectural detail; I had brought them home to scare away snakes if I needed to get under the house, but, reasoned one might scare a bird. And it worked, I make a note to keep firecrackers at hand, and those foam ear-plugs. Even the bugs are silent for a while, then start back in, tentative: a measure of control. I'm your captain, with these foam plugs in my ears, throwing firecrackers at birds, why would you believe me? I'm worried about you, I think about you all the time, what you listen to, what you eat, but I have no control, I merely report. I'm actually a midget with a mop-bucket.